BALTIMORE (AP) — A 31-year-old woman and a young boy were shot in the head Thursday, becoming Baltimore's 37th and 38th homicide victims so far this month, the city's deadliest in 15 years.
The most recent killings claimed the lives of Jennifer Jeffrey and her 7-year-old son, Kester Anthony Browne. They were identified by Jeffrey's sister, Danielle Wilder.
Jeffrey and her son were found dead early Thursday, each from gunshot wounds to the head.
As family members cried and held each other on the quiet, leafy block in Southwest Baltimore where they lived, Wilder said she felt as if "my heart has been ripped out."
Wilder said a neighbor called their other sister early Thursday, concerned that she hadn't heard any noise coming from Jeffrey's house: no footsteps, Wilder said, no voices, and no gunshots. But when her brother let himself into the house to check on the mother and son, he discovered their bodies.
"She was in the living room," Wilder said. "The baby was upstairs, in the bed."
View gallery
Baltimore gets bloodier as arrests drop post-Freddie …
Police investigate a shooting at North Ave and Pennsylvania Avenue on May 18, 2015 in Baltimore, Md. …
Wilder said police told her there were no signs of forced entry, and that whoever killed Jeffrey and Browne were let into the house sometime yesterday. Wilder said Jeffrey also lived with her niece and grand-niece. Wilder said she believed that whoever killed Jeffrey wanted to catch her alone, and that the boy was collateral damage.
Thursday's deaths continue a grisly and dramatic uptick in homicides across Baltimore that has so far claimed the lives of 38 people. Meanwhile, arrests have plunged: Police are booking fewer than half the number of people they pulled off the streets last year.....
....."I'm afraid to go outside," said Antoinette Perrine, whose brother was shot down three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore. Ever since, she has barricaded her door and added metal slabs inside her windows to deflect gunfire.
"It's so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside," Perrine said. "People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They're nowhere."....
...."Our officers tell me that when officers pull up, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them at any time," Batts said.
Batts provided more details at a City Council meeting Wednesday night, saying officers now fear getting arrested for making mistakes....
...With one weekend still to go, May 2015 is already the deadliest month in 15 years, surpassing the November 1999 total of 36.
Ten of May's homicides happened in the Western District, which has had as many homicides in the first five months of this year as it did all of last year.
Non-fatal shootings are spiking as well — 91 so far in May, 58 of them in the Western District.
The mayor said her office is "examining" the relationship between the homicide spike and the dwindling arrest rate....
